M'sia planning ahead for Zika
SEREMBAN - The Health Ministry has a comprehensive set of guidelines on measures to combat the Zika virus if it is detected in the country.
Its minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the guidelines would be issued by tomorrow.
He said fighting the virus was a challenge because it spreads easily.
“But we have to fight it, by stopping it from breeding,” he told reporters after launching the Watch Your Weight, Watch Your Calories healthy eating campaign here.
Also present was Works Minister Datuk Seri Fadillah Yusof.
Zika has been linked to brain birth-defects.
Cases have been reported in Brazil and those infected hardly show any symptoms, unlike dengue.
Both Zika and dengue are transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
Dr Subramaniam said one measure to fight Zika was to eradicate the Aedes mosquito.
He said there was no known treatment or vaccine for the virus.
Dr Subramaniam advised Malaysians planning to visit South America to defer their travels while those returning from there should exercise caution if they felt lethargic or weakness in their limbs.
“Since carriers are asymptomatic, they need to see a doctor if they experience general weakness,” he said.
On Monday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the recent microcephaly cases and other neurological disorders reported in Brazil and French Polynesia in 2014 as a “public health emergency of international concern” but did not call for restrictions on travel and trade.
The condition has been linked to but not proven to be caused by the Zika virus.
Dr Subramaniam said the strain in Brazil was probably different and more dangerous than the one found in Malaysia in 2014.
The virus was first isolated from mosquitoes in 1969 in Bentong, Pahang, and the last case was in 2014 when a German traveller was diagnosed with a mild infection after her return to Germany from Sabah.
In Petaling Jaya, Health deputy director-general Datuk Dr Lokman Hakim Sulaiman said the WHO declaration has no advisory other than the measures Malaysia has taken to combat mosquito breeding.
“The focus is on standardising case definition and diagnostics for clarity of reporting and surveillance, and the need for more studies,” he said.
WHO director-general Margaret Chan, who made the declaration after the first International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on Zika virus, said the committee agreed that a causal relationship between Zika infection during pregnancy and microcephaly was strongly suspected, although not yet scientifically proven.
“All agreed on the urgent need to coordinate international efforts to investigate and understand this relationship better,” she said.
According to WHO, the virus was first discovered in Uganda in 1947 in rhesus monkeys.
It was subsequently identified in humans in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania.
Outbreaks of the virus have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific.
